This is absolutely huge news here in Cuba, though it doesn't seem to be making waves in the U.S.
From Reuters, via the NYT:
Cuban President Raul Castro proposed on Thursday a swap of prisoners with the United States as a goodwill "gesture" to pave the way for talks with incoming U.S. President Barack Obama.
His offer to release political dissidents in exchange for the release of five convicted Cuban spies in U.S. prisons was the most specific proposal yet to ease ties with the United States since Obama, who takes office on January 20, was elected in November.
In exchange, Castro has offered to release all political dissidents, importantly including the 75 independent journalists who were rounded up and dumped in prison in 2003.
Castro made these remarks at the end of Latin American summit in Brazil. Yesterday, the 33 leaders who were part of the summit called on the U.S. government to comply with U.N. resolutions regarding the Embargo and asked the U.S. to end it.
Now, Castro has been making overtures to the U.S. government for the past year regarding talks, all of which have been laughed off by the Bush administration. Bush of course has already excluded the possibility of any such prisoner exchange, but he is now, happily, irrelevant.
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I've lived in Cuba for the past 2 1/2 years. I came just before Fidel got sick. It's been a bumpy road here since, first with the uncertainty of semi-post-Fidel Cuba, then with the hope of some superficial reforms and the release of a few political dissidents, only to be knocked down by the 3 hurricanes, causing government crackdowns in a number of areas.
Curiously, the Cuban government, as expressed through its mouthpiece, the newspaper Granma, was cautiously pro-Obama leading up to the elections. Fidel has a long history of support of the civil rights struggle; much propaganda about race relations in the U.S. leads the average Cuban to believe that African Americans have about the same status in the U.S. as they did in the 1950s. Fidel never thought that Obama would win the election. And then he did.
The result here was a stunning silence--the name Obama was barely mentioned in the press until just a week or so ago, when Fidel finally published one of his famous reflexiones about the future Obama administration. Essentially, he said he didn't think much would change, though he hoped that some of the advances made when Carter was President might be taken up again.
Raul, slowly and silently, seems to be taking a different tack. I think he hates being under Chavez' thumb and is eager to create economic independence here. Lula of Brazil I think is in the best position to point Cuba in that direction. But let's face it: nobody is in a better position to help Cuba climb out of its economy misery than the U.S.
More to come soon...